• Yet, powerful fancy, bid the phantom stay, Starting and shiv'ring in th' unconstant wind, • Still let me hear him!-'Tis already past; Meagre and pale, the ghost of what I was, • Along the waves his lhadow glides away,

Beneath foine blasted tree I lie reclind, • I lose his voice amid the deafening blast. And count the filent moments as they pass : • Ah! wild illusion, born of frantic pain ! The winged moments, whose unftaying speed • He hears not, comes not from his watery bed; No art can stop, or in their course arrest ;

My tears, my anguith, my defpair are vain, Whose flight shall shortly count me with the dead, • Th’infaciate ocean gives not up its dead. And lay me down in peace with them that rat. • 'Tis not his voice! Hark! the deep thunders roll; Oft morning dreams prefage approaching fate; * Upheaves the ground; the rocky barriers fail; And morning dreams, as poets tell, are true.

Approach, ye horrors that delight my soul, Led by pale ghosts, I enter death's dark gate, • Despair, and Death, and Desolation, hail !' And bid thic realms of light and life adieu ! The ocean hears--th' embodied waters come, I hear the helpless wail, the shriek of woe; Rise o'er the land, and with refiftless sweep I see the muddy wave, the dreary shore, Tear from its base the proud aggressor's tomb, The Nuggish streams that flowly creep below, And bear the injur'd to eternal fleep!

Which mortals visit, and return no more.

Farewel, ye blooming fields ! ye cheerful plains ! 138. Elegy to Pity. Anon.

Enough for me the churchvard's lonely mound, HA AIL, lovely Pow'r ! whose bosom heaves the Where Melancholy with ftill Silence reigns, sigh,

And the rank grass waves o'er the cheerless When Fancy paints the scene of decp distress; ground. Whose tears spontaneous crystallize the eye, There let me wander at the close of eve, When rigid Fate denies the pow'r to bless.

When sleep fits dewy on the labourer's eyes, Not all the sweets Arabia's gales convey The world and all its busy follies leave, From flow’ry meads, can with that sigh com And talk with wisdom where my Daphnis lics. pare :

There let me seep, forgotten, in the clay, Not dew-drops glittering in the morning say, When Death thall shut these weary aching eyes, Seem near so beauteous as that falling tear.

Rest in the hopes of an eternal day,
Devoid of fear, the fawns around thee play ; Till the long night is gone, and the last mora

Emblem of peace, the dove before thee fies; arise,
No blood-stain'd traces mark thy blameless way,
Beneath thy fect no hapless insect dies.

Sonnet to Twilig b!.
Come, lovely nymph! and range the mead with me,

Miss WILLIAMS. To spring the partridge from the guileful foe, MEEK Twilight! haste

to shroud the solar ray, From secret suares the struggling bird to free, And bring the hour my pensive spirit loves ;

And stop the hand uprais'd to give the blow. When o'er the hill is shed a paler day, And when the air wiih heat meridian glows, That gives to fillness, and to night, the groves. And Nature droops bencath the conquering Ah! let the gay, the rołeate morning hail, gleam,

When, in the various blooms of light array'd, Let us, Now wandering where the current flows, She bids freth beauty live along the rale,

Save finking flies that hoat along the Atream. And rapture tremble in the vocal shade: Or turn to nobler, greater talks thy care,

Sweer is the lucid morning's op'ning flow'r,
To me thy sympathetic gifts impart;

Per choral melodies benignly rise;
Teach me in Friendship’s griefs to bear a share, Yet dearer to my soul the shadowy hour,
And justly boast the generous feeling heart.

At which her blossoms close, her music dies :

For then mild nature, while she droops her heada Teach me to footh the helpless orphan's grief,

Wakes the soft tear 'tis luxury to shed.
'With timely aid the widow's woes assuage,
To Misery's moving cries to yield relief,
And be the lure resource of drooping age.

§ 141.

Sonnet to Expression. So when the genial spring of life shall fade,

Miss WILLIAMS. And sinking nature owns the dread decay, Some soul congenial then may lend its aid,

EXPRESSION, child of

I! I love to trace

Thy strong enchantments when the poet's iyre, And gild the close of life's eventful day.

The painter's pencil, catch the vivid fire,

And beauty wakes for thee cach touching grace ! $ 139.

Extract from a Poem on his own ap- 3ut from my frighted gaze thy form avert, proacbing Deatb, by MICHAEL BRUCE. When horror chiils thy tear, thy ardent ligh, NW spring returns; but not to me returns When phrenly rolls in thy impallion'd eye,

The vernal joy my better years have known : 2r guilt lives fearful at thy troubled heart :
Dim in my breast life's dying taper burns, Vor ever let my shudd'ring fancy hear
And all the joys of life with health are flown. The wasting groan, or view the pailid look

Of

$ 140.

of him the Muses lov'd *, when hope forsook O Mother, yet no Mother! 'tis to you His fpirit, vainly to the Muses dear

My thanks for such distinguish'd claims are due. Forcharm'd with heavenly fong, this bleeding breast You, unenllav'd to Nature's narrow laws, Mournsit could sharpenill, and give despair no rest! Warm championess for Freedom's sacred cause,

From all the dry devoirs of blood and line,

From ties maternal, moral, and divine, § 142. Sonnet to Hope.

Discharg‘d my grasping foul; puth'd me from shore,

Miss WILLIAMS. And launch'd me into life without an oar. 0,EVER Billed to wear the form we love! What had I loft, if, conjugally kind,

, To bid the shapes of fear and grief depart, By nature hating, yet by vows confin’d, Come, gentle Hope! with one gay smile remove Untaught the matrimonial bounds to flight, The lasting fadness of an aching heart; And coldly conscious of a husband's right, Thy voice, benign enchantress! let me hear; You had faint drawn me with a form alone, Say that for me tome pleasures yet shall bloom ! A lawful lump of life, by force your own! That fancy's radiance, friend hip's precious tear, Then, while your backward will retrench'd defire, Shall soften, or shall chase, misfortune's gloom. And unconcurring fpirit lent no fire, But come not glowing in the dazzling ray I had been born your dull, domestic heir, Which once with dear illusions charm'd my eye! Load of your life, and motive of your care; O strew no more, sweet flatterer! on my way Perhaps been poorly rich, and meanly great, The flow'rs I fondly thought too bright to die. The save of pomp, a cypher in the state; Visions lets fair will sooth my pensive breast, Lordly neglectful of a worth unknown, That alks not happiness, but longs for rest! And Numb’ring in a seat by chance my own.

Far nobler bleilings wait the Bastard s lot;

Conceiv'd in rapture, and with fire begot! § 143. Sonnet 10 tbe Moon.

Strong as necessity, he starts away,

Miss WILLIAMS. Climbs against wrongs, and brightens into day. THE glit'ring colours of the day are fled Thus unprophetic, lately misinspir'd,

Come, melancholy orb! that dwell'st with I sung: gay flutt'ring hope my fancy fir'd; night,

Inly secure, through conscious scorn of ill, Come ! and o'er earth thy wand'ring lustre shed, Nor taught by wisdom how to balance will, Thy deepest shadow and thy softest light. Rafhly deceiv'd, I saw no pits to shun, To me congenial is the gloomy grove, But thought to purpose and to act were one ; When with faint rays the tioping uplands Mine; Heedless what pointed cares pervert his way, That gloom, those penfive rays, alike I love, Whom caution arms not, and whom woes betray; Whose sadness seems in sympathy with mine! But now expos'd, and thrinking from distress, But moft for this, pale orb! thy light is dear, I fly to thelter, while the tempetts press ; For this, benignant orb! I hail thee moit, My Muse to grief resigns the varying tone, That while I pour the unavailing tear, The raptures languish, and the numbers groan. And mourn that hope to me, in youth is loft! O Memory! thou soul of joy and pain ! Thy light can visionary thoughts impart, Thou actor of our paflions o'cr again! And lead the Muse to sooth a suff'ring heart. Why dost thou aggravate the wretch's woe?

Why add continuous smart to ev'ry blow?

Few are my joys; alas, how soon forgot ! § 144. The Ballard.

SAVAGE.

On that kind quarter thou invad'It me not : IN gayer hours, when high my fancy ran, While tharp and numberless my sorrows fall;

The Muse, exulting, thus her lay began : Yet thou repeat'st and multipliest them all! Bleft be the Bastard’s birth! through wondrous Is chance a guilt? that my disastrous heart, ways

For mischief never meant, must ever smart? He shines eccentric like a comet's blaze !

Can felf defence be fin : - Ah, plead no more ! He lives to build, not boast, a generous race: What tho' no purpo;'d malice itain'd thee o'er, No tenth transmitter of a foolith face.

Had Heaven befriended thy unhappy fide, His daring hope no sire's example bounds;

Thou hadît not been provok'd-or thou had died. His first-born lights no prejudice confrunds.

Far be the guilt of homeshed blood from all He, kindling from within, requires no fiame; On whom, unfought, embroiling dangers fall! He glories in a Bastard's glowing name. Still the pale dead revives, and lives to me, Born to himself, by no poffeflon led,

To me, through Pity's cyc condemn’d to see! In freedom foster'd, and by fortune fed; Remembrance veils his rage, but swells his fate; Nor guides, nor rules, his fovereign choice control, Griev'd I forgive, and am grown cool too late. His body independent as his soul;

Young and unthoughtful then, who knows, one Loosid to the world's wide rangem-enjoin'dno aim, day, Prescrib'd no duty, and assign'd no name : Whatripening virtues might have made their way! Nature's unbounded son, he stands alone, He might have liv'd till folly died in shame, His heart unbiass'd, and his mind his own.

Till kindling wisdom felt a thirst for fame.

care

He might perhaps his country's friend have provid; On the ninth noon great Phoebus listening bends, Both happy, generous, candid, and belov'd; On the ninth noon each voice in prayer ascendsHemight have fav'd some worth now doom'd to fall; Great God of light, of long, and physic's art, And I perchance, in him, have murder'd all. Refore the languid fair, new soul impart !

O fate of late repentance, always vain! Her beauty, wit, and virtue claim thy care, Thy remedies but lull undying pain.

And thine own bounty 's almost rivall'd there. Where shall my hope find reft: -No Mother's ca Each paus'd: the god allents. Would Death Shielded my infant innocence with prayer:

advance! No father's guardian hand my youth maintain'd, Phæbus unseen arrests that threatening lance! . Callid forth my virtues, or from vice restrain'd. Down from his orb a vivid influence streams, Is it not thine to snatch some pow'rful arm, And quickening earth imbibes falubrious beams; First to advance, then screen from future harm ? Each balmy plant increase of virtue knows, Am I return’d from death, to live in pain? And art inspir'd with all her patron glows. Or would Imperial Pity fave in vain ?

The chariner's opening eye kind hope reveals, Distrust it not—what blame can mercy find, Kind hope her confort's breast enlivening feels. Which gives at once a life, and rears a mind? Each grace revives, each Mule resumes the lyre,

Mother miscallid, farewel! -of soul fevere, Each beauty brightens with relumin’d fire. This fad reflection yet may force one tear : As Health's auspicious pow'rs gay life display, All I was wretched by, to you I ow'd ;

Death, fullen at the fight, stalks Now away, Alone from strangers ev'ry comfort flow'd !

Lost to the life you gave, your son no more, And now adopted, who was doom'd before,

§ 146. Ode to Pity. COLLINS. New-born, I may a nobler Mother claim,

THOU, the friend of man allign'd, But dare not whisper her immortal name;

With balmy hands his wounds to bind, Supremely lovely, and serenely great!

And charm his frantic woe :
Majestic Mother of a kneeling State !

When firit Diftress, with dagger keen,
QUEEN of a people's heart who ne'er before Broke forth to waste his deftin'd scene,
Agreed—yet now with one consent adore ! His wild unsated foe!
One conteit yet remains in this desire,

By Pella's Bard, a magic name,
Who mott hall give applause, where all admire. By all the griefs his thought could frame,

Receive my humble rite: § 145. On the Recovery of a Lady of Quality from

Long, Pity, let the nations vicw tbe Small-Pox. SAVAGE.

Thy sky-worn robes of tenderest blue,

And eyes of dewy light! LONG a lov'd fair had bless’d her coulore's fight

But wherefore need I wander wide With amorous pride, and undisturb’d delight;

To old Iliffus' distant fide, Till Death, grown envious, with repugnant aim

Deserted streain, and mute ? Frown'd at their joys, and urg'd a tyranı's claim. Wild * Arun too has heard thy strains, He fummons each diseale!-the noxious crew,

And Echo, ’midst my native plains, Writhing in dire distortions, ftrike his view!

Been sooth d by Pity's lute.
From various plagues, which various natures There first the wren thy myrtles shed
know,

Un gentlet Otway's infant head;
Forth rulhes beauty's fear’d and fervent foe. To him thy cell was fhewn :
Fierce to the fair the millile mischief Hies, And while he sung the female heart,
The fanguine streams in raging ferments rise ! With youth's soft notes unspoil'd hy art,
It drives, ignipotent, through every vein, Thy curtles mix'd their own.
Hangs on the heart, and burns around the brain Come, Pity, come, by fancy's aid,
Now a chill damp the charmer's lustre dims!

Ev'n now my thoughts, relenting maid,
Sad o'er her eyes the livid languor swims!

Thy temple's pride design:
Her eyes, that with a glance could joy inspire, Its fouthern lite, its truth complete
Like setting stars, scarce shoot a glimmering fire. Shall raise a wild enthufiaft heat,
Here ftands her confort, fore with anguilh

In all who view the shrine.
press'd,
Grief in his eye, and terror in his breast.

There Picture's toil shall well relate The Paphian Graces, smit with anxious carc,

How chance, or hard involving fate,

O'er niortal bliss prevail :
In'silent forrow weep the waning fair.
Eight suns, succeílive, roll their fire away,

The buskin'd Muse Thall near her stand,
And eight flow nights see their deep thades decay. And fighing prompt her tender hand,

With each disastrous tale. While these revolve, tho' mute each Muse appears,

There let me oft, retir'd by day, Each speaking cyc drops cloquence in tears. In dreams of paffion melt away, • A river in Suflex.

Allow'd

Allow'd with thee to dwell :

Or in fome hollow'd seat,
There waste the mournful lainp of night, 'Gainst which the big waves beat,
Till, Virgin, thou again deliglit

Hear drowning seamen's cries in tempests brought! To hear a British Thell !

Dark pow'r, with thuddering meek submitted

thought,

Be mine, to read the visions old, $147. Ode to Fear. COLLINS.

Which thy awakening bards have told. THOU, to whom the world unknown And, Icít thou meet my blasted views

With all its hadowy shapes is shown ; Hold each strange tale devoutly true; Who seest appall’d th' unreal scene,

Ne'er be I found, by thee o'eraw'd, While Fancy lifts the veil between ;

In that thrice-hallow'd eve abroad; Ah, Fear! ah, frantic Fear!

When ghosts, as cottage-maids believe, I see, I see thee near.

Tlieir pebbled beds permitted leave, I know thy hurried step, thy haggard eye! And goblins haunt from fire, or fen, Like thee I start, like thee disorder'd fly; Or mine, or flood, the walks of men ! For, lo, what monsters in thy train appear ! O thou, whose spirit most possessid Danger, whose limbs of giant mould

The sacred seat of Shakspeare's breast ! What mortal eye can fix'd behold ?

By all that from thy prophet broke, Who stalks his round, an hideous form, In thy divine emotions spoke! Howling amidst the midnight storm,

Hither again thy fury dcal, Or throws him on the rigid steep

Teach me brie once like him to feel ;
Of some loose hanging rock to sleep;

His cypress w.eath my meed decree;
And with him thousand phantoms join'd, And I, o rear, will dwell with thee!
Who prompt to deeds accurs'd the mind:
And those, the fiends, who near allied,

148. Odle to Simplicity. COLLINS. O'er nature's wounds and wrecks preside;

O THOU, by Nature taught, While Vengeance, in the lurid air,

To breathe her genuine thought, Lifts her red arm, expos'd and bare:

In numbers warmly pure, and sweetly strong: On whom that ravening brood of fate,

Who first on mountains wild, Who lap the blood of Sorrow, wait;

In Fancy, loveliest child, Who, Fear, this ghaftly train can see,

Thy babe, and Picalure's, nurs'd the pow'rs of And look not madly wild, like thee?

song!
Thou, who with hermit hcart

Dildain'st the wealth of art,
In earliest Greece, to thee, with partial choice,
The grief-full Muse address’d herinfant tongue;

And gauds, and pageant weeds, and trailing pall:

But com's a decent maid,
The maids and matrons, on her awful voice, In attic robe array'd,
Silent and pale, in wild amazement hung.

O chaste, unboastful nymph, to thee I call i
Yet he, the Bard * who first invok'd thy name, By all the honey'd ftore
Disdain'd in Marathon its pow'r to feel :

On Hybla's rhymy shore,
For not alone he nurs'd the poet's flame, By all her blooms, and mingled murmurs dear,
But reach'd from Virtue's hand the patriot's By her whose love-lorn woe,
steel.

In evening musings Now,
But who is he, whom later garlands grace,

Sooth'd sweetly fad Electra's poet's ear :
Who left awhile o'er Hybla's dews to rove, By old Cephilus deep,
With trembling eyes thy dreary steps to trace,

Who spread his wavy sweep
Where thou and furies thar'd the baleful grove: In warbled wand'rings round thy green retreat,

On whose enameli'd fide,
Wrapt in thy cloudy veil th' incestuous Queen +
Sigh'd the fad cast her fon and husband heard, No cqual haunt allur'd thy future feet.

When holy Freedom died,
When once alone it broke the filent scene,
And he the wretch of Thebes no more appear d.

o fifter meek of Truth, O Fear, I know thee by my throbbing heart,

To my admiring youth
Thy withering pow's inspir'd each mournful Thy sober aid and native charms infufe !

The flow'rs that sweetest breathe,
line;
Though gentle Pity claim her mingled part,

Though beauty cull'd the wyrcath, Yet all the thunders of the scene are thine.

Still ask thy hand to range their order'd hues.

While Rome could none cfteem,
ANTISTROPHE.

But virtue's patriot theme,
Thou, who such weary length haft past, You lov'd her bills, and led her laurcate band;
Where wilt thou reft, mad nyinph, at latt? But ftaid to sing alone
Say, wilt thou fhiowd in haunted cell,

To one distinguish'd throne, Where gloomy Rape and Murder dwell? And turn'd thy face, and fled her alter'd land. * Æschylus.

+ Jocasta,

No

EPOLE.

A

No more, in hall or bow'r,

And thou, thou rich-hair'd youth of morn, The parlions own thy pow'r,

And all thy subject life was born. Love, only Love, her forceless numbers mean: The dangerous pallions kept aloof, For thou hast left her thrine,

Far from the sainted growing woof:
Nor olive more, nor vine,

But near it fat ecstatic Vonder,
Shall gain thy feet to bless the servile scene. Listening the deep applauding thunder:

And Truth, in funny veft array'd,
Though taste, though genius bless
To some divine excels,

By whose the Tarfol's eyes were made ;
Faint 's the cold work till thou inspire the whole; All the lhadowy tribes of mind,

In braided dance their murmurs join'd,
What cach, what all supply,
May court, may charm our eye,

And all the bright uncounted pow'rs,

Who feed on heaven's airbrosial flow'rs. Thou, only thou, canst raise the meeting foul !

Where is the Bard whole foul can now Of these let others ask,

Its high presuming hopes avow? To aid some mighty tak,

Where he who thinks, with rapture blind, I only seek to find thy temperate vale ; This hallow'd work for him design'd? Where oft my reed might found

High on some cliff to heaven up-pil'd, To maids and Thepherds round,

Of rude access, of prospect wild, And all thy sons, o Nature, leanu my

tale.

Where, tangled round ihe jealous steep,
Strange shades o'erbrow the vallies deep,

And holy Genii guard the rock,
$149. Ode on the Poetical Character. COLLINS. Its glooms embrown, its springs unlock;
S one, if, not with light regard,

While on its rich ambitious head

An Eden, like his own, lies spread. (Him whose school above the rest

I view that oak, the fancied glades among, His loveliest Elfin queen has bless'd),

By which a Milton lay; his evening ear, One, only one unrivail'd fair *

From many a cloud that dropp'd ethereal dew, May hope the magic girdle wear,

Nigh spher’d in heaven its native strains could At folemn tournay hung on high,

hear : The wish of each love-ciarting eye :

On which that ancient trump he reach'd was Lo! to cach other nymph in turn applied,

hung: As if, in air unseen, some hovering hand,

Thither oft his glory greeting, Some chaste and angel-friend to virgin-fame,

From Wailer's mvrile fhades retreating, With whisper'd spell had burft the starting With many a vow from Hope's aspiring tongue, band,

My tremoling feet his guiding steps pursue ; It left unbleft her loach'd dishonour'd fide ;

In vain-such bliss to one alone Happier hopelefs fair, if never

Of all the fons of loul was known, Her bafiled hand with vain endeavour

And Heaven and Fancy, kindred pow'rs, Had touch'd that fatal zone to her denied ! Have now o'erturn'd th' inspiring bow'rs, Young Fancy thus, to me divinest name, Or curtain'd clofe such scene from every future To whom, prepar'd and bath'd in heaven,

vicw. The cest of ampleft pow'r is given, To few the godlike gift affigns,

s 150.

Ode. Written in the Year 1746. To gird their bleft prophetic loins,

COLLINS. And gaze her visions wild, and feel unmix'd her

HOW Neep the brave, who sink to rest flame.

By all their country's wishes bleft: The band, as fairy legends say,

When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Was wove on that creating day

Returns to deck their hallow'd mould, When he, who call d withi thought to birth

She there thall drels a swocter fod,
Yon tented sky, this laughing earth,

Than Fancy's fuer have ever trod.
And dress’d with springs, and foretis call,
And pour'd the main engiring all,

By Fairy hands their knell is rung,

By forut's unfcen their dirge is tung; Long by the lov'd enthusiast woo'd,

There Honour comes, a piloriin grey, Hiinself in some diviner mood,

To bless the curf that wraps their clay ;
Retiring, fate with her alone,

And Freedom Thall awhile repair,
And plac'd her on his fapphire throne,
The whiles, the vaulted thrine around,

To dwell a wecping hermit there!
Scraphic wires were heard to sound,
Now sublimest triumph swelling;

ģ 151. Ode 10 Mercy. COLLINS,
Now on love and mercy dwelling;
And she from out the veiling cloud

0

THOU, who fitt'ít a smiling bride Breath'd her magic notes aloud :

By Valour's aim'd and awful lide, * Florimel. Ses Spenser, Leg. 4.

Genticit

STROPNE.

30